Gravity
by EpicInTheLibrary
Summary: Kendall doesn't think James gets it when he tells him, "I love you tons." Kames


_lol wow it certainly has been a while. Again (Sorry I will try to do my best to remain literate on this website). I'm really actually very pleased with the outcome of this so if you could drop a review in the box down there? I would appreciate it so so very much. ;v;_

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Kendall doesn't think James gets it when he tells him, "I love you tons."

It'll be after a quickie in the bathroom, or beneath the glow of post-sex deceleration, where they lie against each other, catching their breath, bearings, beating of hearts, and Kendall will say it, like an item that exists and nothing further, and James will reply, "Love you too, honeycakes," or something equally as ridiculous, because that's how James sees the gesture; a form of light, harmless ridicule.

Kendall thinks about it sometimes, fleeting pondering moments while James sits between his legs and marks fingerprints deep into his hips, how James is a pile of bricks on his chest, slowly pressing down on him, weighing him into the ground foot by foot, counting four, five, six. He watches James' sweat-sheened face and sees the tendons in his arms shifting and listens to his strong, ragged breathing until they all meld into colors and shapes and vibrations on his ears and his thoughts _snapcracklepop! _and he loses himself in the keening euphoria of climax, though through the haze he can feel another one or two bricks drop heavily onto the ever-growing pile.

James is pretty smiles that arc up into gorgeous springtime eyes that tell so much more than the miles and miles of smooth, tan skin that rolls and pitches in the storms they so often stir up together. Each crinkle in the corner of his eye, each bout of laughter leaping from the depths of his navel, each significant arch of an eyebrow that suggests so much more than he means and later exactly what he means when bed sheets become an inconvenience rather than a comfort; each new attribute of James' character that Kendall becomes acquainted with enough to find familiar and even reassuring is another brick laid heavily onto the pile, mortared in to prevent removal, because once Kendall's recognized something, it's impossible to forget or ignore.

It builds and builds and consistently builds until thirty thousand tons weigh down on his chest, the fingers of his ribcage creaking and groaning as they bend inward, arching into hooks that claw towards his heart, a fortress that yields sympathy because there is no escape from James, temporary or otherwise. He is an eternally caged bird at the mercy of James Diamond, who holds the only key, but he's tossed it overboard long ago, so now not even he could free Kendall if he wanted to- which, judging by the recent jump in frequency of their rendezvous, he doesn't.

It's been making it a lot harder lately, the bricks more densely packed, heavier on his straining ribcage, because James recruits him far more often than what Kendall has become used to, and their escapades have become outrageously more intimate. Kendall supposes that there isn't much that is more intimate than sex, but that becomes hard to adhere to when James is slowing down to brush kisses along his collarbone, neck, temple, forehead; when his touches turn tender and slow instead of the familiar rough and needy; when he pulls Kendall aside just to blow him really quick and then decline any offers to get himself off as well with the excuse of having wanted to see how fast he could bring Kendall off; when he stares into Kendall's eyes while driving determinedly into him until he comes, stare thick with an imaginary passion that doesn't belong because it's _James_ and he's _Kendall_ and it just _doesn't work like that_. Then, afterward, he kisses Kendall, anywhere he can- cheek, shoulder, chest- anywhere that isn't his mouth- and Kendall feels another solid brick thud against the pile, adding to the tons and tons that hold him down, crush him into a nothing that can only be tamed and yet nurtured by James.

So when, after James litters a single kiss on Kendall's body, Kendall says, "I love you tons," it's because he _does-_ James just doesn't get it.

He's climbing, running, sprinting, soaring, and in seconds he hits the edge and tumbles over and James is right there with him and it _hurts_ more than the ground possibly ever will, but he's falling, free falling, falling falling until arms fold around him and a terrible security befalls him but he can't stop because he's caught and saved and doomed and-

James' breath shudders against his jaw and a moment later there's the soft press of a kiss covering the fast-fading warmth, and Kendall's ribs ache and he's exhausted and he wants to close, but he still mumbles through tired lips, because he has to, "I love you tons."

There's a moment's hesitation, which Kendall isn't accustomed to, because James, anticipating the expression, usually has something ready before he's even finished, but in the next moment something soft and halfway familiar touches to his lips unexpectedly, and in the second it takes for it to disappear, Kendall realizes what it was. Astonished, he blinks open torpid eyes and finds James' brown-yellow-greens hovering just above, staring deeply and meaningfully into him, right through the quadruply reinforced brick walls surrounding his heart and into a raw pulp that smarts at the abrasion of his acute gaze. His voice is soft, a murmur, when he speaks next, but Kendall hears it directly to his very core, words branded to his soul forever, words that weigh tons and tons beyond dense tons of bricks, in a way he's never felt before and isn't sure what to do with, but he knows it needs to be something, because it is absolutely and positively something he cannot ignore, no matter how terrified or hopeful he wants to become.

"I love you, too."


End file.
